hometown - Link to source

I'm watching Bad Bunny perform on the TV (I'm a bar writing), and it's awesome and it's reminding me of how batshit it is that puerto ricans can't vote in federal elections in the US

what ... what is the putative argument for that? I mean know the actual reason is a historic and *radioactive* level of racism on the part of the republican party, but ...

... what's the polite reason, given out loud by supposedly Veddy Serious People?

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Jeff Atwood

big picture? US government is so ossified now that basically nothing big can ever change or happen, for example, I'm quite sure there will never, ever be another constitutional amendment passed. The last real one was in 1971 (lowering voting age to 18) and that was really about opposing the Vietnam war:

Our government seems to be slower and slower at delivering change due to the increased polarization of our two party system. The last meaningful constitutional amendment we’ve managed to pass in the last 60 years was the 26th amendment in 1971, lowering the voting age to 18 and giving more people a voice in our democracy.


blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gol…

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Jeff Atwood

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Radio Free Trumpistan reshared this.

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Clive Thompson

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@codinghorror

Aha, that's a great point, and a great essay -- thank you!

Ironically, the poem that "stay gold" refers to was by Robert Frost, and it's ... deeply, existentially pessimistic about the ability of anything to stay gold lol: poetryfoundation.org/poems/148…

he had a sort of entropic view of morality

I mean, *sort of*: Frost was an old-school self-reliance, the-constitution-is-paramount conservative

Is suspect he'd be 100% livid at the behavior of today's republicans, and the white house

@Jeff Atwood
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Radio Free Trumpistan

@Jeff McNeill @Jeff Atwood @Clive Thompson
I'm glad you feel that way, Jeff, because I'm going to join in on your invitation to "go on about a two party system". The duopoly is exactly what's wrong with the two party so-called system because they're both members of the Epstein class, and that's why it's been called a "duopoly" for decades. It appears to me that you insist on keeping the same old "system" expecting different results.
@Clive Thompson @Jeff Atwood @Jeff McNeill
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Cyber Yuki

@codinghorror @claralistensprechen5th @jeffmcneill It's not just the two party system. Two party PLUS first past the post voting PLUS electoral college PLUS gerrymandering PLUS not autoregistering voters after they reach legal age PLUS lobbying PLUS not making elections national holidays PLUS propaganda TV networks.

The system has so many hoops to jump through that it's BARELY a functional democracy.

Truth is, the entire system is rigged. ALL OF IT.

@Jeff Atwood @Radio Free Trumpistan @Jeff McNeill
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old man and the cbowns

@jeffmcneill to answer Clive’s question, the point is that Puerto Rico (and DC) statehood has long been a live and “hotly debated” issue due to maximalist winner-take-all system design in politics in the US for the last 30 years. (More specifically, the likely +4 D vote outcome in the Senate means Republican operatives have zero incentive to enfranchise this chunk of Americans.)
The last year has, uh, not improved that situation, to your point.
@codinghorror @clive
@Clive Thompson @Jeff Atwood @Jeff McNeill
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flogallama

@codinghorror I think I first understood this after watching “An Unreasonable Man,” (the Ralph Nader doc) which described the circling of the wagons by the two parties in the US after the presidential run of Ross Perot. The parties walked away from democracy and into the arms of the donor class because it was advantageous to maintain a duopoly.
@Jeff Atwood
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Clive Thompson

@jason

I'm canadian, and a product of 70s/80s canadian culture, when white canadians were still -- culturally -- in a sort of weird colonial crouch with respect to the british empire ...

... so satirists up there would mock the instinctive assumption by white canadians that british accents sounded fancy and important ...

... by using "veddy" in print as a substitute for "very", i.e. emulating the poncy upper class british accent

@Jason Petersen (he)
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your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

TL;DRH we never wanted to be a state, the gringos who stole our land never wanted us to be a state, and Spain back-stabbed us.

by us, i mean the working classes, not the landowning managers of La Corona & gringolarchy.

so we’ve been in a limbo, sometimes bombing you gringos with guerrillas or musicians.

as it stands: way before owing us independece, USians owe us reparations; ie: Puerto Rico is taíno land denied to millions of us gaslighted about not surviving genocide

@clive

@Clive Thompson
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your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

there’s more about this, of course, but DNA evidence of our taíno ancestry (⅓ of us have direct anscestors, not just chromosomal markers) has made us even more determined about our separate & independent cultural identities: Puerto Rico is a nation where Caribbean, African, EU and other cultures have their own very Puerto Rican cultural expressions.

Borikén is millenia older than USA. Puerto Rico existed 250 years BEFORE USA.

we want what has been denied to us since 1898.

@clive

@Clive Thompson
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Rejin

Am I wrong that Puerto Ricans who live in the states can vote in federal elections?
Edit: just looked it up & yes, Puerto Ricans who are residents of one of the 50 states can vote, based on state residency not just citizenship status.
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your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

yup.

in USA, because of “state rights” (which are extended to territories) you have 2 political relationships :

1. the federal CITIZENSHIP

2. the state or territory RESIDENCY

so, when you move across state or territory lines, you can’t immediately vote in your new locality. you can vote in federal elections if resident of the 50 + G̶u̶a̶m̶, but if you move to & become a resident of La Isla or US Virgin Islands, you can’t.

folks always forget the USVIs.

@fromjason @gbargoud @clive @rejinl

@Clive Thompson @Rejin @George B @fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻
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George B

This of course means that if I was to move from NY to Egypt (or any other country but that's where I have another citizenship so that's the example I'm using), I would have more rights federally than if I were to move from NY to Puerto Rico or another territory

This is so clearly absurd and yet how it is

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